Sense Crime
by Sus
Summary: Mrs Preston's thoughts before and after her arrest for the Sense Crime of loving her husband. (This was the very first EQ story on FF.net. Just to blow my own trumpet a little...)
1. Before

//A/N: God, I love this movie, and I love the backstory with Preston's wife. This was fizzing in my head all the way home from the cinema, so here it is, as coherent as I could make it. :)//  
  
Sense Crime  
  
Before  
  
I watch him quietly as he prepares dinner for the children. Efficient, that's what he is. When I met him, when we were paired I saw: efficient. I saw: dependable. I saw: handsome, reliable, I saw strong and healthy offspring that he would provide for. But that's all changed since I gave birth to Lisa. I see something different now.  
  
I'm afraid. I think maybe he knows. He always knows, he's the best Cleric there is, he always knows when someone is feeling. I'm so afraid that he knows, and he won't be able to help himself. Like I said, he's the best Cleric there is. If he knew, he'd turn me in, because it's his job to be the best. If people found out that his own wife was a Sense Offender...  
  
He turns, catches me watching. He looks puzzled. He has no idea what I find so interesting in the simple act of his making dinner. I had better be more careful, an irrational act like that could get me arrested and processed, turned in by my husband, or perhaps even my own son. I wouldn't blame them; they wouldn't be able to comprehend any other course of action.   
  
I stopped taking my intervals after I had Lisa. I guess I was sick of popping out these babies and never caring about them, never knowing why I was doing it. I was sick of sleeping with John and never knowing why we should sleep in the same bed or why we should copulate to make these children I cared nothing for. There's a better term I learned from my explorations into EC-10 material - "making love". It would be good to make love with John, just once to know that he wasn't thinking of it as an excercise solely to create a child. I envy the women among the few Sense Offenders I know whose husbands or lovers are feeling too, but I could never persuade the highest ranking Cleric in the Tetra-Grammaton to skip his interval. I must not even mention it, though I long to try. Longing - that's another feeling I know well now.   
  
And over the past three years the feelings have grown alright. I'm feeling more every day! It makes me afraid, but somehow the feelings make the fear less terrible. He catches my eye again, and this time I'm sure he knows. I've seen that look before, when he knows he's found someone who's feeling. I brace myself for the accusation, no, not even an accusation because he knows he's right. It'll be a statement, a flat fact. "You're feeling."  
  
He turns away, intent on the food he's taken from the microwave. I can't believe it, I know that he knows, but he's not accusing me, he's not arresting me. The next time he looks round his face is blank; all it's asking is - Will you come have dinner now? I go to sit down, and he sets my plate in front of me. He sits opposite, the children in between, and we discuss his day, my day, the children's' day.  
  
I think that he knows, but he will not allow himself to know. What does this mean? Could he..? It's impossible. He's around other Clerics every day; it would have been spotted long before now. Even so, a tiny spark of hope awakes in me. Another feeling! The tiniest spark, that's all I'll allow. Couldn't stop it if I tried! I think it will be okay, if I keep it to myself, if I don't show what I'm feeling or that I'm even feeling at all.  
  
I will allow myself only this: one tiny spark of hope that my husband loves me as I have begun to love him. 


	2. After

Sense Crime  
  
After  
  
Oh! Oh, what happened? I'm scared, I'm so scared! It wasn't John, there is that much. It wasn't John, but oh, my John! He fought them for me, but only when he thought...oh, and I kissed him for the first and last time...the shirts, the children...  
  
No, no, that's not the right order at all! Calm down, need to get things in order, make some sense of it all. Okay.  
  
First: I was folding shirts. John came in and looked at me, and I smiled at him. I shouldn't have smiled! But what difference would it have made? At least he got that one smile, to remember me by.  
Second: The Grammaton forces burst in. Someone had noticed I was feeling and reported me. But it wasn't John, because-  
Third: John fought them, he fought them all, my brave, good, strong, brave John!   
  
Then they told him I was guilty. His face...I think a part of him knew that I was feeling, and so to have it revealed like this was like a betrayal of secret things. He looked so shocked that I had failed him. My slowly growing feelings were shattered away, I never knew feeling could be so painful. How I loved him in that moment! Then they took me away- no, not quite, first the kiss. I had stolen kisses in the night, when he was fast asleep without dreaming, and would never know it. I had longed for that proper kiss for so long, that to have to snatch it in those last precious seconds was heartbreaking. I told him to remember me.   
  
I want him to remember me, even if it is as the wife who failed him, the Sense Offender who may already have ruined his reputation. I wanted him to remember the kiss, and perhaps the smile, and that I was the mother of his children.  
  
Then I was hauled off. The children saw, but probably they don't care either way. The difference was that I cared. I cared about seeing them there, knowing I would never see them again. They didn't let me say goodbye. They wouldn't understand the need for it.  
  
I'm for incineration in the morning. This dark cell frightens me, presses in on me. John may even be there at the furnace, to witness it, but he won't care, he can't care. I will not cry, I will not beg for mercy. He will remember me as being cold and rational to the end. Sense Crime...it makes no sense to me. That loving your husband should be a crime...  
  
He thought it was a mistake, he didn't know of my crimes then, when he fought the troops invading out home! Would you have fought for me, John, if you had known I was guilty? It doesn't matter, my love. All that matters is that I love you, whether you can love me or not. Goodbye John.   
  
Remember me..! 


	3. Author's Note

It has been brought to my attention that according to Kurt Wimmer, babies in the world of EQ are born conceived in vitro. *scowls* Well, that buggers up my fic somewhat. All I can say is - screw it. If he isn't going to mention it in the movie, quite frankly as far as I'm concerned its not a fact, and so I think I'll stick to my version of events. I like mine better.  
  
That's my rant over, expect a new chapter within the week! :P 


End file.
